


You Can Take the Boy Out of Brooklyn

by mmwhatchasayy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Could be platonic, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Dies, Steve was never Captain America, Winter Soldier Bucky, but they're in love & everyone knows it, i think??, i'm bad at tags i'm sorry, im not really sure tbh, implied Steve/Bucky, its not tho lmao, only if ur really trying, shrinkyclinks, steve never got the serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 14:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14357760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmwhatchasayy/pseuds/mmwhatchasayy
Summary: Steve Rogers is 37 years old, and he is dying. He's alone, just as he has always been.(Only, it hadn't always been like this. There had been someone once.)





	You Can Take the Boy Out of Brooklyn

_It took HYDRA thirteen years to break Bucky Barnes. It took them a whole lot longer to wipe his mind of Steve Rogers. But, of course, they don't know that._

 

//

 

Steve is thirty-seven years old when it happens.

He's alone and he's dying and he's just the tiniest bit scared.

There's no one to sit in the chair beside his bed and hold his hand, no one to cry over him, no one to pray with him and make empty, unknowing promises that it'll all be alright. There had never been anyone.

Only, that's a lie.

There had been a time, so long ago, when he'd thought - he'd thought - 

 _No_.

Even now, he refuses to let himself think the name. Because he's been here, like this, almost dead and hurting but not quite gone, not just yet, and he'd allowed himself to remember dimpled cheeks and sparkling eyes and a laugh like no other, allowed himself to remember _him,_ thinking they'd be together again soon. 

But the world has always been a cruel place, and Steve Rogers has always been stubborn as a mule, and so he's still clinging to life, some thirteen years after he lost everything important to him.

And so he pushes that laugh, that smile, the both of them just as bright as the sun, back into the corner of his mind.

Because if he really is dying this time (and, honestly, he hopes that he is - he's tired and he's lonely and, God, he misses his best friend), then he'll see the man soon enough, won't he?

At this point, the lack of that smile, like something was ripped from Steve, painful and violent and horrible - it's become more painful than the disease tearing up his insides. And it only gets worse when he allows himself to look back, to remember.

And so he doesn't. He forgets.

(Not really, though. He could never forget those times, the very best of his life. He could never forget him.)

But for now, with each labored breath, with every blood-speckled cough, he struggles. He's clutching to his last thread of life, holding on for all he's worth.

Because even as exhausted as Steve is, as much as he misses his Ma and - and everybody else, he's scared. Any sane person would be, even if they've stared death right in the face as many times as Steve Rogers has.

At this point, he and death are practically old friends.

And, God, he's so close - so _close_ \- to crossing over that line he can't ever return from and finally allowing himself to rest, when he hears a noise.

It's quiet, far away, the soft creak of a door. (Only, after 37 years of deteriorating, Steve's ears aren't exactly in the best shape - it's likely that the noise isn't so far away, after all.)

"Is someone there?" His voice is a rasp, dry and painful as the words claw their way up his throat. 

There's a long stretch of silence. Steve strains his ears for a sound, any sound, a hint that he isn't as alone as he'd thought.

It feels like an eternity passes without another noise, and so Steve chalks it up to a fever-induced  hallucination. He allows his eyes to slip closed.

Sleep is beginning to set in again, heavy and dark and . . . almost comforting. He's confident, now, this is it. He'll finally be able to rest.

He allows himself to picture him, just for a moment. One last time.

Dark hair, brilliant blue eyes, a crooked smile so beautiful it could take anyone's breath away, could light up any room.

But the world is not kind, and fate has not taken a liking to Steve once in all his years.

His bedroom door squeaks loudly as it opens, its rusty hinges wailing in protest. Steve's eyes pop open.

He sucks in a gasp - it's more of a wheeze, really - at the sight of the man who seemed to appear from nowhere in the doorway of his room, keeping his face hidden in shadow. He's dressed head to toe in black, from his dark and heavy-looking boots to his thick leather jacket. The gun strapped to his belt isn't exactly conspicuous.

Steve's shoulders hunch up toward his ears involuntarily. He'd almost been ready to go - then again, he'd been almost ready all his life - but not like _this_.

Though slipping away peacefully had never exactly seemed his style, he supposed.

Somehow, he eventually manages to find his voice. Even as exposed and vulnerable as he currently is, Steve Rogers has never been one to back down from a fight (though he's still not sure what this is).

"Can I help you?" The words are laden with sarcasm. They're scathing, sharp, and a whole lot less shaky than Steve had expected them to be.

The man says nothing, simply wavers in the doorway like he doesn't know what to do.

He opens his mouth to speak again when a coughing fit so severe it rattles his very bones seizes him tightly. He's choking and gagging, he can taste coppery blood on the back of his tongue and feel it spotting the back of his hand, a vivid contrast against the pale skin there.

The man steps forward as if on instinct, a hand reaching out toward the dying frame on the bed, fingers outstretched.

When Steve finally collapses back into his pillows, panting with exhaustion, the dark figure makes a sound.

It's not what one would expect from a leather-clad, wide-shouldered menacing outline of a man. It's a noise of worry, of pain and sorrow.

And Steve's heard it millions of times before.

It's a sound like the man with blue eyes and a laugh warmer than sunshine used to make, when Steve was burning with fever and convulsing with pain, or when he came home with a blackened eye and a broken arm.

He inches closer to the bed, like he's unsure if he's welcome.

Steve is no longer so confident that he isn't. 

Maybe it's the way that the man stands with his shoulders hunched, maybe it's the way his greasy and unkempt hair falls over his eyes, maybe it's the way he keeps clenching and unclenching his fist, as if he wants to reach out to Steve but at the same time he can't. Maybe it's that he somehow broke in without breaking down the door, when Steve knew that he'd locked it. Maybe it's the way he seemed to know which floorboards squeaked loudest, the ones that were safe to step on and the ones that weren't, as if he'd been there before, almost as if it's muscle memory at this point.

Maybe it's something else altogether.

But whatever it is, there's something about the man that screams familiarity, safety.

And when another thick cough wracks Steve's frame, the man practically collapses into the chair at his bedside.

He doesn't bother to protest, for the time being, anything is better than being alone. Besides, it's not like he's in real danger, like there's anything this man could do to him that isn't already about to happen. He just lets his eyes flutter closed.

He's so tired, now. He's ready, as much as any one person could ever be.

A few moments pass in silence, his stuttering and uneven breaths the only thing to disrupt the quiet, before the man whispers something almost unintelligible to failing ears.

It's only years of deciphering that same voice in situations not far from this one that allow him to understand:

"Steve?"

It's the voice of a scared child clinging to hope, clinging to his brother.

(Because that's what they are, that's what they have always been.)

The light filters back in as his eyes reopen. And finally, he can see - the tangled hair may cover his eyes, but Steve has always known this man, known the cleft of his chin and the small scar on his jaw, the smile lines around his mouth and the slight crookedness of his teeth.

A shaky hand lifts from the bed to brush the hair behind his ear, and - finally, finally, finally.

It's been so long since he's seen those eyes.

"You came home," he whispers back, weak voice cracking with emotion as he smiles, tired but happy. "You came home to me."

A tear leaks from his eye to travel down the side of his face and melt into the rough fabric of a pillow.

"Steve," he murmurs again, seemingly unable to say anything else.

He cups the hand still ghosting his cheek, leads it down to rest atop the blanket, bony fingers laced with his own. "Steve, Steve, Steve."

They do nothing but stare at each other until the blond is unable to keep his eyes open any longer, though the smile does not leave his face.

It stays there even as his last breath leaves him.

 

//

 

In the end, it's all very anticlimactic.

It seems so very wrong for a man who had done so much, saved so many, to have gone out in anything less than a blaze of glory.

A peaceful close to a story that was anything but.

It could've been worse, though. He deserved the world, and despite the fact that he never got it - and now never would - at least he went with a smile on his face.

He hadn't had the time to think on it, to question why or how.

(If he had, he never would've believed that his very best friend had come back from the dead simply to see him off, to make sure he wasn't alone. Though, knowing the man's unfaltering loyalty, maybe he would've.)

Bucky sits with him, holding his rapidly cooling hand, until night has long since fallen over Brooklyn.

He doesn't remember much of anything anymore - not the cold and rickety apartment he sits in, nor his family, nor the war that created him.

He doesn't remember the draft that called him to fight for his country, or the way that he'd cried over the letter for days before telling anyone he'd enlisted.

He doesn't remember growing up, or growing old. He doesn't remember falling into snow and ice, or any of the events that transpired afterward.

But he does remember Steve Rogers.

The little blond with more courage than anyone he'd ever met, a sense of justice big enough to fell a giant. The way the sun always lit him from behind as if a sort of halo, the way he'd shove at Bucky when he moved too much as the littler man did his best to sketch him.

Every possible detail, he remembered. He held it dear, told no one of this single light in a life otherwise shrouded in darkness.

The countless memory wipes had taken everything else from him, everything but this. He would never let them take it, no matter how hard they tried.

Because if there's one thing in all the world that Bucky Barnes will always remember - even long after all that is Bucky Barnes has faded away - it is Steve Rogers.

And nothing can ever change that.

(It's hours after Steve's heart had given out that Bucky stands, gingerly placing a hand with blue fingertips back on the bed. He leans down to press his lips to Steve's forehead, a silent thank-you for all that they'd once had. 

All they'd given each other.

He can't help but look back as he makes his way out. 

He owes him that, at the very least.)

He's back under the control of his handlers within the hour, and his memory is wiped before the dawn rises to a new day, his mind a clean slate once again.

But Steve stays with him, in his heart and his mind and his very being, just as he always has.

They're all each other has, and that's how it's been since the beginning.

There's no one to visit Steve, no one to realize he's passed on, no one to grieve his loss. He's only found a month later when his downstairs neighbor worries over the smell and the landlord breaks the door down. Even then, there's not a single living soul to mourn him.

For Bucky Barnes does not seem to have a soul anymore, all he has is what his handlers tell him and the memory of a boy with an iron will stronger than any army.

He doesn't return to Brooklyn.

There's nothing left for him there.

 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if this is shit i literally have no idea if i like it or not sooooo yeah :)
> 
> lmk in the comments if there's something u love or hate or don't understand or have absolutely no opinion about whatsoever, and you'll make my day.
> 
> hope you enjoyed!!


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